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Vampire Aesthetic
In her article “Powerful, Beautiful, and Without Regret:” Femininity, Masculinity, and the Vampire Aesthetic,” Joan Forry argues that conventional beliefs of beauty and appearance are at work in the portrayal of vampires. In vampire aesthetic, however, beauty is mostly conceptualized along the constructs of gender and sexuality. If a male vampire is conceptualized as a handsome martyr, the female one is conceptualized as a femme fatale, a sexually attractive woman bringing destruction. MAIN ARGUMENT: Forry’s observation about the conceptualization of vampires as beautiful along the lines of gender and sexuality is true, but it only applies to the modern culture, since vampires had …show more content…
Take, for example, the main character of a Serbian vampire folk tale – Peter Plogojowitz. He is portrayed as having blood around his mouth and with his beard, nails, and hair excessively grown during the ten weeks that he spent buried. Once the corpse of Peter Plogojowitz gets pierced, blood gushes from its ears and many other “wild signs” appear. They are so unpleasant that the author does not consider it appropriate to elaborate on them. Besides, the vampire is portrayed as making frightening sounds. In another folk tale, “The Shoemaker from Silesia,” the vampire is portrayed as having a bloated, although undecomposed, body and making unpleasant noises. As Heide Crawford observes in her dissertation “The Origins of the Literary Vampire in German Horror Ballads from the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries,” vampires were consistently portrayed as having extremely bloated bodies, which made them look as if they gained significant weight since death; as having blood gushing from their noses and mouths; and with grown nails, hair, and beards (Crawford 58). As for their qualities of character, the vampires in old tales are portrayed as zombie-like and mindless corpses that are not associated with power or beauty. Likewise, the accounts of vampires in ancient Indian, Celtic, Chinese, and Greek folklores all represent them as nightmarish and ugly creatures rather than romanticized sex symbols (Dalton par.7). Even Bram Stoker’s 1897 book Drakula portrays the male protagonist, a vampire, as a cold and cruel creature. Rather than being torn between the need to follow some moral norms and satisfy his appetite for blood, Dracula perceives his hunt for victims as a game and humans as his toys (Stoker
Professor
Course Number
Date
Vampire Aesthetic
In her article “Powerful, Beautiful, and Without Regret:” Femininity, Masculinity, and the Vampire Aesthetic,” Joan Forry argues that conventional beliefs of beauty and appearance are at work in the portrayal of vampires. In vampire aesthetic, however, beauty is mostly conceptualized along the constructs of gender and sexuality. If a male vampire is conceptualized as a handsome martyr, the female one is conceptualized as a femme fatale, a sexually attractive woman bringing destruction. MAIN ARGUMENT: Forry’s observation about the conceptualization of vampires as beautiful along the lines of gender and sexuality is true, but it only applies to the modern culture, since vampires had …show more content…
Take, for example, the main character of a Serbian vampire folk tale – Peter Plogojowitz. He is portrayed as having blood around his mouth and with his beard, nails, and hair excessively grown during the ten weeks that he spent buried. Once the corpse of Peter Plogojowitz gets pierced, blood gushes from its ears and many other “wild signs” appear. They are so unpleasant that the author does not consider it appropriate to elaborate on them. Besides, the vampire is portrayed as making frightening sounds. In another folk tale, “The Shoemaker from Silesia,” the vampire is portrayed as having a bloated, although undecomposed, body and making unpleasant noises. As Heide Crawford observes in her dissertation “The Origins of the Literary Vampire in German Horror Ballads from the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries,” vampires were consistently portrayed as having extremely bloated bodies, which made them look as if they gained significant weight since death; as having blood gushing from their noses and mouths; and with grown nails, hair, and beards (Crawford 58). As for their qualities of character, the vampires in old tales are portrayed as zombie-like and mindless corpses that are not associated with power or beauty. Likewise, the accounts of vampires in ancient Indian, Celtic, Chinese, and Greek folklores all represent them as nightmarish and ugly creatures rather than romanticized sex symbols (Dalton par.7). Even Bram Stoker’s 1897 book Drakula portrays the male protagonist, a vampire, as a cold and cruel creature. Rather than being torn between the need to follow some moral norms and satisfy his appetite for blood, Dracula perceives his hunt for victims as a game and humans as his toys (Stoker